Cisco, Walmart Torch the Street: Thursday’s IP Market Recap

All it took was another day of disappointing second-quarter earnings to tip markets down, and Cisco (CSCO[1]) and Walmart (WMT[2]) both obliged, sending all three market indices well into the red.

The earnings news offset what was an upbeat series of economic reports, with the jobless claims dropping over the past month to 320,000 — 15,000 below last week — and the Consumer Product Index rising 0.2%, which was right in line with economists’ estimates.

The Nasdaq closed lower by 1.72% at 3506.12, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.47% to end the day at 15112.19. The S&P 500 fell 1.43% to 1661.32.

Cisco reported fairly robust earnings and revenues[3] for the quarter, with the bottom line up 11% (beating estimates) year-over-year on a 6% increase on the top line (meeting estimates). However, the company cited a difficult market ahead, telegraphing slower revenue growth of 3%-5%, below analysts’ 7% targets, and announced it will lay off 4,000 employees[4]. Shares tanked more than 7%, weighing on both the Nasdaq and Dow.

Cisco’s news took down a good bit of the tech sector, with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ[5], -4.5%) and Juniper Networks (JNPR[6], -3.8%).

Walmart fared no better, as second-quarter earnings came in flat at $1.24 per share, just under analyst estimates of $1.25, while revenues came in at $117 billion, under estimates of $118 billion. Worse yet, sales in stores open more than 1 year declined 0.3%, and the company guided analyst expectations lower for the full year. WMT shares finished 2.5% lower, and sent other discount retailers such as PriceSmart (PSMT[7], -2.5%), Costco (COST[8], -1.8%) and Target (TGT[9], -1.4%) with it.

Kohl’s (KSS[10]) avoided the fall, with both rising over 5% on the day. KSS managed to improve both its top and bottom lines for the quarter.